1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an input control apparatus for various electronic or electrical apparatuses such as an electronic musical instrument and, more particularly, to an electronic musical instrument using such an input control apparatus as an electronic tone generation parameter control input apparatus, especially, an electronic musical instrument for generating an electronic tone corresponding to a bowed instrument.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A control input in an electronic apparatus, especially, in an electronic musical instrument or the like is made by a switch operation or a key ON/OFF operation on a keyboard. Therefore, a keyboard or switches or push buttons on an operation panel constitute an input apparatus.
A conventional input apparatus comprising such a keyboard or push buttons or various switches often confronts a problem of poor operability or operation feeling or often causes an operation error since it has separate operation units.
As a terminal input apparatus for, e.g., a computer, a mouse which can freely roll on an X-Y plane and sends an input signal corresponding to moving amounts in X- and Y-directions is used.
Since a conventional mouse sends an input signal based on only the moving amounts in the X- and Y-directions, it cannot be used when input signals corresponding to more control parameters are required.
On the other hand, an electronic musical instrument for generating a bowed instrument tone such as a violin comprises a physical sound source for generating an electronic tone which is obtained by physically approximating a mechanical vibration of a bow corresponding to a movement of a contact between a string and a bow by an electrical circuit. In such an electronic musical instrument, performance function parameters such as a bow pressure acting on a string of a bowed instrument, a bow velocity, a bow position, and the like are inputted upon operations of a keyboard consisting of a plurality of keys. More specifically, key codes representing a scale, or strengths, durations, and the like of tones are inputted according to key ON or OFF touches or timings on the keyboard and upon operations of other switches on the keyboard.
As another performance operation member, a guitar controller or a wind controller may often be used.
In the conventional electronic musical instrument, since control information corresponding to performance is inputted upon key ON/OFF operations on the keyboard or operations of switches on the keyboard, the switches and push buttons constitute separate input means, and a player (operator) must move his or her hands to select and operate switches or the like every time he or she wants to control musical tone parameters. Therefore, this results in poor operability for musical tone control, technical difficulty in actual performance, and a performance control operation error.
The conventional guitar controller or wind controller has its principal object to imitate an acoustic instrument, i.e., to attain resemblance to the acoustic instrument, and cannot attain musical tone control with good operability and excellent performance feeling.
Since a conventional mouse-type input control apparatus is moved to an arbitrary position on the X-Y plane at an arbitrary speed to perform input control, it has very good operability. However, since a control apparatus of this type sends only position data in the X- and Y-directions as input information, it cannot be used for a control object such as an electronic musical instrument which must perform input control for a large number of control parameters.